Scrapping Around

As yesterday was symptom free, I decided to skip the bland for lunch today (after a porridge brekkie).
But first, an appetite had to be summoned, so we took advantage of the first bright day in way too long and went on a new walk, somewhere we'd never heard of never mind been too until this morning, and yet just under 2 miles from where we live. Looking at the photos now, though, the sun was really weak. Typical January 'sunny' day in Northern Ireland...



I found the walk on the WalkNI website, lots of good ideas there.








View over Belfast (I'd need a proper camera for you to be able to make anything out...)

When we got in I was craving soup for lunch, but didn't want to make plain vegetable soup with the veggies I'd bought, as that's for soup during the week (and I knew my boyfriend would eat the entire pot) so I decided to see what else I had to use up. In went a red onion I'd forgotten about, the last two cloves on some garlic in the fridge, two carrots, a small bunch of collard greens, lots of dried herbs and paprika, a packet of passata, a tin of borlotti beans I've had for ages and some broken up spaghetti from two packets that didn't have enough left in for a serving. I finished the soup with lots of fresh lemon juice and parsley which made it amazing. It was basically a cheaty minestrone. While it was bubbling away, I threw together some herbes de provence scones (biscuits to you Americans) to go with the soup. I had my scone with the last bit of some goat's cheese and some fig relish from the delicatessan. My Dad calls this type of eating 'scrapping around', but it always produces the best meals. Yum!

Stone soup

Super white goat's cheese

Scone/cheese/relish mess

Big bowl of roasty toasty zingy lemony soup

Lunch is served. Although soup and a scone isn't a traditional sunday dinner, I was as full as if I'd eaten one. As predicted though, he went back for another bowl (and his first was bigger than mine). Amazingly, there's still a more modest lunch sized portion left, which can be filled out with the leftover scones.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend:)

Bring on the Bland

I seem to be feeling a bit better. I didn't mention it in the last two posts, but I actually think the upset might have been my pancreas acting up as I had a lot of upper abdo pain from monday to wed, as well as nausea and NO appetite, but it was only thursday and friday that saw any untimely expulsions. I reckoned a bug would have got to work a bit quicker and with the more unpleasant symptoms first rather than last. That said, I had one of my enzyme levels tested on wednesday and it was normal (most bouts of pancreatits show elevated amylase but not always with chronic pancreatitis, or other metabolic things going on). Anyway, I'm just glad I'm better and would rather not think about the fact that pancreas problems might not be 'so last year'. Let's hope that's the end of it.
I'm going easy on my guts though, lots of blandness and even less fibre than normal. Read: white rice, white toast, (white) probiotic yogurt (very good after diarrhoea, esp for IBSers). All very pale, and actually, interesting. I'm becoming an expert at showing off bland's best features.

Check this out:



Rice pud, Rachel's Organic Coconut Greek yogurt (delicious, even for a mediocre coconut person), Sainsbury's organic soft set raspberry jam.

Speaking of yummy yogurt, I picked up Yeo Valley Organic's current limited edition one: apple flapjack yogurt. I figured since soft, bland, proteiny and good bacteria-laden are the name of the game, I may as well enjoy it:) (although this one will wait for a bit and I'll stick to the plain stuff for now).

Source

I hope you're all having a nice weekend. It's very wet and windy in Belfast, so aside from shopping and a little washing, I haven't done a lot today. I'm off to see The King's Speech at our local independent cinema, and might pop into the pool tomorrow when it's nice and quiet in the morning, more for a gentle splash around than any actual swimming.

Between loo dashes

Quick update: I've got swine flu or a stomach bug. I'll be back when I'm better.

Image source

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's New Campaign

I'll be tuning in for the next three night's to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest food campaign on channel 4. The website is here- www.fishfight.net. Having added fish back in to my diet, I will be watching very closely.



Don't expect any posts for a few days, I think I'm getting the 'flu :S

Something fishy's going on...

It was my Dad’s 60th birthday at the weekend and since my mum and sister had cooked on Christmas day, I offered to do this one. I got most of my recipes from Nigel Slater’s new book, Tender v. 2, which my boss kindly bought me for Christmas. The book is really beautifully presented, and worth the price alone for the gorgeous photos. However it is chocful of wonderful ideas for growing and cooking fruit and nuts. Each fruit is dealt with separately, a little about the author’s own experience with growing the fruit, followed by a run through of some of the common garden varieties and then ideas for pairing the fruit with other flavours. The recipes follow after that. I already own the first volume of Tender, and found it invaluable as a source of ideas for flavour combinations. I haven’t cooked many of the recipes, but I have featured the pumpkin scone recipe a few times here. All in all, the books have made Nigel Slater my current favourite food writer because the books are about growing AND cooking- they cover the whole process, and they are both beautiful ‘coffee table’ books and yet full of information.
I used his measurements for the New Waldorf salad, but skipped the mayo dressing and made my own with the same herbs (mint and parsley) but with lemon and walnut oil. The salad was served with smoked mackerel, homemade toasted no knead bread and a horseradish crème fraiche with the fish.



For the main courses I did two dishes- a pork, perry and pear dish,



and a chicken, lemon, celery and grape dish, both from Tender v.2. I skipped this course (I don’t intend to expand my diet beyond eggs, dairy and fish).



Dessert was a hazelnut praline tiramisu




and a pudding cake of plum, honey and cinnamon (again from Tender v.2).


My piece today with a little yogurt. The cake tastes like ginger cake because of the dark treacley sugar.



Aside from the party, I did a bit more experimenting with fish over the weekend. I had a smoked salmon scrambled egg and salad breakfast,




and a Cornish yarg (type of artisan cheese), smoked salmon and apple sandwich for lunch on saturday.



This morning I was back to fruit and brown rice puffs and a big salad for lunch (although with some leftover mackerel) and dinner was stir fried leeks, portabello mushrooms and lots of collards with soy sauce, rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil. The photo is rubbish because I took it with my laptop cam as I'd left my phone in my car. The photo is really just here to prove I'm still eating all plant meals, but the photo is so bad, that could be beef rather than mushrooms!



I am finding my meals much more satisfying and my IBS continues to stay away despite the cheese and yogurt. Out of curiosity, I ‘nutritiondata’ed the smoked salmon scrambled egg breakfast and it came in at around 370 calories (58% fat, 23% protein, 19% carbs), about the same as a typical bowl of oatmeal and nut butter, but kept me full longer. The dish is a little high in salt but I didn’t add any and of course plenty of cholesterol which isn’t a big worry for me since I eat so little normally. I found myself eating a lot less carbs and sugar with the additional of these foods. I’ll be keeping a log of what I eat for the first while, something I usually do when I change my diet.

I haven't been exercising much, it's quite cold and wet here. Yuck. I have done some indoor cycling and weights, but that's the height of it. I can't get up early enough to go to the pool before work, and once I get home from work I just can't face going out again. I have been a few times at the weekend over the winter months, but that's it. And I haven't got up the Mourne mountains at all because every weekend I'm free the weather has been rubbish. We're hoping for this weekend! I hope I will have some nice photos of the mountains to show you at the weekend, as well as some winter picnic food.

New Year and Diet Update

The weather was pretty rubbish over the New Year break, but we got out for a little walk to Northern Ireland's highest waterfall, Cranny Falls.

We tucked into our mushroom pate and rocket rolls and munched on some fruit.




I used the time off to bake some slow bread- no knead bread. The initial rise is 18 hours(!) But as you can see, it's worth it, not having to knead the dough means you can make it as wet as you dare to get all the lovely air bubbles.

A warm slice with olive oil

I continued the flour adventures another day with pancakes:

Yummy with maple syrup.

Dinners have been rice and veggies, usually, with some add ins.


This one had rocket, broccoli, parsley, loads of lemon juice, smoked paprika and roasted shallots and veggie sausages chopped up.

And this was my laksa spice blend mixed into the cooking water with thai jasmine rice, then spinach and petit pois, plus a splash of soya cream and plenty of lime juice and a little coarse sea salt.

I guess some readers won't like this very much, but I had a secret New Year's Resolution- to consider expanding my diet a bit because I had reduced my consumption of nutrient dense vegetables to ease my IBS and also because, truth be told, every time I looked at the artisan cheeses in the deli and my heart ached at the thought of never trying one of those again. I thought about it a lot over the holidays and have decided to experiment with a little small scale produced dairy (raw milk goat and ewe cheese and yogurt, but not milk, butter etc). The main aim is to add more variety, satiety and pleasure to my plate and to vary my sources of protein, calcium, iron and zinc beyond soy and brassicas. I'm hoping it'll help my dry skin and menstrual issues that have started this year. So far I have had goat cheese and organic yogurt made a few miles down the road. I had forgotten how zingy dairy yogurt was. My tummy seems to be handling it very well so far, in fact the goat cheese lunch really filled me up. Anyways, I'm not decided on the extent of this experiment but I'm contemplating the odd egg or perhaps bit of fish as well as a bit of yogurt and goat or ewe cheese.
Here's how I ate the yogurt:

With a passionfruit and some frozen raspberries.

For now my boyfriend is not joining me on this although he supports my choice. The irony is it was my idea to transition from vegetarianism (he being stricter than I over the years) to veganism this time last year and he went along with it. He says he doesn't miss dairy and feels much better without cheese in his diet. Before he went vegan his cholesterol was elevated and the doctor had told him to reduce it. The great thing is we now eat a greater variety of foods but my stomach has struggled with the carb heaviness. My boyfriend seems to do well on lots of carbs, whereas I find it hard to feel satisfied but my tummy gets upset. I prefer more protein, and have been getting that mostly from tofu.
Over the last 2 or 3 months, in an attempt to eat lower fibre, I have been eating more processed foods than I would like, and my other food resolution is to cut this out. At the moment my thinking is that I'd rather have a bit of artisan cheese to sate my appetite than a chocolate biscuit.
Anywa, that's all for now. I will have more foodie stuff early next week as I'm doing a special birthday dinner for my Dad on sunday. I got him a bird table this year:)

Happy New Year Cake

The yummy citrus scented batter. I used an electric blender for this cake (I usually just beat by hand).

The cake after it came out of the oven. It spent almost 3 hours in there! First 45 minutes covered with a foil 'tent', then out to put the nuts on, another 90 minutes, then apply a brandy and sugar wash, then a final 15 minutes. Worth waiting for!

The crumb is a lovely golden colour and beautifully moist, and light but not at all crumbly.

Close up of the cherries. Confession- I love glace cherries. I know they're more sweets than fruit. And I don't care.

This cake was a real revelation for me, the complexity of the flavours and the amazing texture has landed this cake right up there above even chocolate cake. My tastes have definitely changed, these days I'd rather have a fruit or ginger cake than a victoria sponge with buttercream or a chocolate cake. If you'd like to try this Dundee cake out, here's the recipe and the instructions. I saved the recipe a year ago and I'm only making it now! There were some small departures from the original and I used vegan subs obviously. I used egg replacer powder for the eggs and also the juice of an orange and a few tablespoons of soya milk, Sainsbury's own brand Free from spread for the butter, homemade grapefruit marmalade, 2 tablespoons of apple brandy (Calvados) in the mix and I brushed the top with brandy and sugar rather than milk and sugar.

I should also point you in the direction of the cake's creator, Dan Lepard. Click the link to go to his website. He has a great column in the Guardian every saturday.

Happy New Year, may it bring plenty of yummy cakes!

Oh, P.S.-did you see Toast on the BBC during the week?? It was a film of the autobiography of my favourite food writer. Check it out if you haven't already.